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Lisa Soronen

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In South Dakota v. Wayfair South Dakota is asking the Supreme Court to rule that states and local governments may require retailers with no in-state physical presence to collect sales tax. Doing so will require the Court to overrule Quill v. North Dakota (1992), where it held that states and local governments cannot require a business to collect sales tax unless the business has a physical presence in the state.

Based on oral argument the Court is likely to follow one of three paths. It could keep the physical presence test and not overturn Quill. It could overturn Quill and replace (or add to) the physical presence test an economic nexus test (like the South Dakota law which requires out-of-state vendors to collect tax only if they annually conduct $100,000 worth of business or 200 separate transactions annually in the state). Finally, it could overturn Quill and allow states to require all out-of-state vendors to collect sales tax no matter how much (or little) business they do in a state.

In South Dakota v. Wayfair South Dakota is asking the Supreme Court to overrule precedent and hold that states and local governments may require retailers with no in-state physical presence to collect sales tax. The National Conference of State Legislatures estimated that states lost $23.3 billion in 2012 from being prohibited from collecting sales tax from online and catalog purchases.

Twenty-five years later in Quill v. North Dakota (1992), the Supreme Court reaffirmed the physical presence requirement but admitted that “contemporary Commerce Clause jurisprudence might not dictate the same result” as the Court had reached in Bellas Hess.

The Supreme Court issues a few summary reversals a term where it overturns a lower court decision without briefing or oral argument. Few summary reversals receive much attention because they are “usually reserved . . . for situations in which the law is settled and stable, the facts are not in dispute, and the decision below is clearly in error.” While the majority of the Supreme Court sees Kisela v. Hughes this way, Justice Sotomayor disagreed in a headline-grabbing dissenting opinion describing this case as allowing police officers to “shoot first and think later.”

Officers arrived at Amy Hughes’s house after being told a woman was hacking a tree with a kitchen knife. Officers saw Hughes emerge from her house carrying a large kitchen knife at her side. Hughes stopped no more than six feet away from her roommate, Sharon Chadwick. After officers told Hughes twice to drop the knife and she did not comply, Officer Kisela shot her four times.

One of the questions the Supreme Court may decide in Trump v. Hawaii is whether lower federal courts have the authority to provide injunctive relief that benefits non-parties as well as the party asking for relief. The State and Local Legal Center (SLLC) filed an amicus brief arguing in favor of lower federal courts authority to issue injunctive relief that benefits non-parties.

In this case Hawaii, the Muslim Association of Hawaii, and three individuals sued President Trump claiming the third travel ban, which indefinitely prevents immigration from six countries: Chad, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Syria, and Yemen, was illegal and unconstitutional.

The same day Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross announced his plan to add a question about citizenship to the 2020 census California filed a complaint seeking an injunction preventing the question from being added. The next day New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced he would lead a multi-state lawsuit challenging the question.

In December 2017 the Department of Justice (DOJ) requested that a question about citizenship be added to help DOJ more effectively enforce Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race in voting. Citizenship has not been asked about in the biennium census since 1950.

The challengers to the redistricting of Maryland’s Sixth Congressional District just might win—if the Supreme Court actually decides their case.

In Benisek v. Lamone in 2011 the Maryland legislature needed to move about 10,000 voters out of the Sixth Congressional District to comply with “one-person one-vote.” It moved about 360,000 Marylanders out of the district and about 350,000 Marylanders in the district. As a result only 34 percent of voters were registered Republican versus 47 percent before redistricting.

Most of the Trump administration’s disagreements over protecting undocumented immigrants have been with local governments. But on March 6 the Trump administration filed a complaint against the State of California. The administration claims three California statutes aimed at protecting undocumented immigrants are preempted by federal immigration law. The administration asks the court to issue a preliminary injunction disallowing California from enforcing the statutes.

In Reed v. Town of Gilbert, Arizona (2015) the Supreme Court held that strict (usually fatal) scrutiny applies to content-based regulations of speech. One of the questions in NIFLA v. Becerra is whether the Court means for Reed to apply to (nearly) every law regulating content-based speech. The State and Local Legal Center (SLLC) filed an amicus brief arguing that Reed should not be read that broadly.

California law requires that licensed pregnancy-related clinics disseminate a notice stating that publically-funded family planning services, including contraception and abortion are available. It also requires unlicensed pregnancy-related clinics to disseminate a notice they are unlicensed. The National Institute of Family and Life Advocates (NIFLA) operates 111 pregnancy centers in California. None offer abortions or abortion referrals; only 73 are licensed.

The State and Local Legal Center (SLLC) filed a Supreme Court amicus brief in one of the most important cases of the organization's 35-year tenure: South Dakota v. Wayfair.

In this case South Dakota is asking the Supreme Court to rule that states and local governments may require retailers with no in-state physical presence to collect sales tax. Ruling this way will require the Supreme Court to overturn long-standing precedent.

The Supreme Court will not be involved in the DACA litigation—for now.

The Supreme Court denied the Trump administration’s request for it to review a California federal district court decision temporarily putting the administration’s decision to terminate DACA on hold. To get relief, the Trump administration must now appeal the district court decision to the Ninth Circuit. The Trump administration had asked the Supreme Court to get involved in this case before the Ninth Circuit had a chance to rule. The Supreme Court does not usually rule on federal district court decisions.